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Newcomers with radically different beliefs about mental health, such as Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia, have had to reconcile their different understanding of the causes of mental illness.

Doctors and others who work with immigrants say being in a new country, without the support of family and surrounded by a foreign culture can be a real psychological hardship.

A National Latino and Asian American Study, concluded by December 2003 with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health suggested that recent Hispanic and Asian immigrants had a lower incidence of mental disorders than Americans, but accessed help far less often. Click here.

The Migration Information Source (Dec. 1) announced its second annual list of the year's Top 10 Migration Issues. Governments favoring assimilation over multiculturalism policies tops the 2006 list, which also includes the competition for skilled workers, the worsening situation in Darfur, and this past summer’s crisis in Lebanon. Immigration reform and the many local immigration "initiatives" are on the list. Check out the Immigration Top 10 by clicking here.

A campus discussion about illegal immigration turned violent Thursday evening, when protesters clashed with the MSU College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom, who sponsored the event. MSU police were dispatched to the event after an employee of the law college called the department, MSU police Sgt. Brian McDaniel said. "About 10 to 20 protesters disrupted the event," he said. "We believe they were responsible for pulling the fire alarm." Protesters said they came to show their opposition to controversial Republican congressman Tom Tancredo, of Colorado, who spoke at the event. Before Tancredo arrived and while the event was being set up, protesters gathered on the fourth floor of the law college with signs that read "Ignorant Racist." Click here for more.

Outside his aqua-colored concrete house here, Rene Alvarez Rosales paused under an almond tree to answer questions about a subject with which he has surprising familiarity: Governor Mitt Romney's Belmont lawn. For about eight years, Rosales said, he worked on and off landscaping the grounds at Romney's home, occasionally getting a "buenos dias" from Romney or a drink of water from his wife, Ann. "She is very nice," said Rosales, 49. About 6 miles away in Copado, a 37-year-old man who recently returned to Guatemala from the United States told a similar story, describing long days tending Romney's 2 1/2-acre grounds. "They wanted that house to look really nice," said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous. "It took a long time." As Governor Mitt Romney explores a presidential bid, he has grown outspoken in his criticism of illegal immigration. But, for a decade, the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants, to maintain the grounds surrounding his pink Colonial house on Marsh Street in Belmont. Click here for the full story.

If the allegations are true, Romney joins two Attorney General nominees (Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood) under President Clinton and nominees for Seceratary of the Department of Labor (conservative pundit Linda Chavez) and Secretary of the department of Homeland Security (NY Police Chief Ray Kerik) under President George W. Bush.

A former supervisor at the Department of Homeland Security pleaded guilty Thursday to accepting at least $600,000 in bribes to provide fraudulent citizenship documents to hundreds of Asian immigrants.

Robert T. Schofield, 57, who once supervised as many as 50 employees in the Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Fairfax, Va., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to bribery and to aiding and abetting the illegal procurement of citizenship.

He faces as many as 25 years in prison when he is sentenced in February. Prosecutors said they will seek the maximum sentence. Click here.

The Bears and the Cardinal play for the Stanford Axe, which was actually unveiled on the eve of an 1899 baseball game between the schools. Stanford students used the Axe on a straw man dressed in blue and gold at a pre-game pep rally. During the game, blue and gold ribbons were cut into pieces with the Axe, and the Axe was used to chop wood, signifying a good play by the then-Stanford Indians. When Cal rallied for a dramatic win, a frenzied group of Bears grabbed the Axe and transported it via ferry to Berkeley and placed it in the safe of a Berkeley bank. It was removed once a year for the Axe Rally. By 1933, each side decided the Axe was a fitting Big Game trophy. It is mounted on a plaque that lists the game's scores.

Trivia Question

1. Name the four quarterbacks who won Big Games as starters and also were starting quarterbacks in Super Bowls.

The Wall Street Journal Online reporrts that one in seven Mexican workers, or 14% of the Mexican labor force, was in the U.S. in 2005, and that number probably has increased in the past year. A new report of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington research group comes to this conclusion and also said those workers sent home $20 billion in remittances in 2005, equal to almost 3% of Mexico’s gross domestic product. The report describes the typical Mexican worker as a male under age 45 who is far likelier to be in the labor force than are U.S.-born men or even other foreign-born residents. Almost one-third of Mexican-immigrant workers were in service industries and almost one-quarter were in construction in 2005. Mexicans accounted for 5% of the U.S. labor force. The report also highlights a concern about the fast-growing Mexican workforce: Its generally low education level, which means that most Mexican immigrants are stuck in low-skilled, low-paying jobs. Only 5.8% of Mexican workers had a bachelor’s degree compared to 33% of U.S.-born workers. Click here for the link.

A Brooklyn judge is courting controversy with a new illustrated children's book that some critics are calling a thinly veiled anti-immigration screed. Criminal Court Judge John Wilson's "Hot House Flowers" warns of "effects of unregulated immigration" in a plot line about beautiful flowers that wither when dandelions sneak into their greenhouse. Click here for the full story.

California has won the last four BIG GAMES by a combined score of 126-32, an average margin of victory of 31.5-8. In 2004, Cal was a 41-6 winner; the 35-point margin of victory tied Cal's 1921 victory (42-7) for the Bears' largest winning margin in the series. Cal Coach Jeff Tedford is unbeaten in four Big Games.

Here is another Big Game memory: 1972 California 24, Stanford 21 California drove 62 yards in the final 1:13 of the contest. The game ended with Bears quarterback (who later quarterbacked in two Super Bowls) Vince Ferragamo tossing a 7-yard touchdown to a diving Steve Sweeney for the final score.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Emilio Gonzalez announced today the release of 144 questions and answers for the pilot test of a new naturalization exam. USCIS will administer the pilot exam in early 2007 to about 5,000 volunteer citizenship applicants in 10 cities. “We found that the current naturalization exam process lacks standardization and encourages applicants to memorize facts just to pass a test, but that doesn’t guarantee that they understand the meaning behind the question,” said Director Gonzalez. “Our goal is to inspire immigrants to learn about the civic values of this nation so that after they take the oath of citizenship they will participate fully in our great democracy.” USCIS included new questions that focus on the concepts of democracy and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In designing the new exam, USCIS received assistance and worked with test development contractors, U.S. history and government scholars, and English as a second language experts. USCIS also sought input from a variety of stakeholders, including immigrant advocacy groups, citizenship instructors and district adjudications officers. The pilot will allow USCIS to work out any problems and refine the exam before it is fully implemented nationwide in the spring of 2008.

The questions and answers are posted on the agency Web site, http://www.uscis.gov. Questions that are not successful in the pilot will be dropped, narrowing the list to the same 100 questions as the current exam. The range of acceptable answers to questions will increase so that applicants may learn more about a topic and select from a wider range of responses. In addition to new questions, USCIS will soon release a new civics-based vocabulary list to help applicants study for the English reading and writing portion of the proposed test. During the trial period, volunteer applicants who choose to take the pilot exam can immediately take the current exam if they incorrectly answer a pilot question. To pass, applicants will have to correctly answer six of 10 selected questions. The 10 pilot test sites are: Albany, N.Y.; Boston, Mass; Charleston, S.C.; Denver, Colo; El Paso, TX; Kansas City, Mo..; Miami, Fla.; San Antonio, TX; Tucson, Ariz.; and Yakima, Wash.

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH NETWORK IMMIGRATION, REFUGEE & CITIZENSHIPLAW ABSTRACTS Vol. 5, No. 31: November 29, 2006 Editors: GABRIEL J. CHIN, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law BERNARD TRUJILLO, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Law School

"Unemployment Dynamics among Migrants and Natives" IZA Discussion Paper No. 2299 Author: KLAUS F. ZIMMERMANN, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), University of Bonn, Journal of Population Economics, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). Co-Author: ARNE UHLENDORFF DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=932038

"The Internationalization of Public Interest Law" University of California, Los Angeles School of Law Research Paper No. 06-41 New York Law School Clinical Research Institute Paper No. 06/07-5 Author: SCOTT CUMMINGS, UCLA School of Law Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=944552

"Causes and Factors Hampering the Repatriation of Afghan Refugees - A Case Study of Two Camps in District Swabi (North West Frontier Province, Pakistan)" Author: MOHAMMAD JALAL UDDIN, University Of Peshawar - Islamia College. Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=936033

In collaboration with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and other community partners, KQED presents “Bay Area Immigration: Where We’ve Been and Who We Are Now,” a public forum on Wednesday, December 13 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the San Francisco Public Main Library. Panelists Bill Ong Hing, Professor of Law & Asian American Studies at University of California at Davis, and Nu Nu Kadani of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration will lead a lively discussion about how the history of immigration affects who we are today and what this means for the Bay Area. 0. The event is a part of KQED’s Immigration in Focus (www.kqed.org/immigrationinfocus), a year-long collection of thought-provoking programs, special reports and events about the complex issues surrounding immigration.

This is to let you know that applications are now being accepted for the 2007 Annual LatCrit Student Scholar Program. Each year LatCrit, Inc. sponsors this program designed to foster the intellectual and professional development of students who are interested in entering teaching, whether in law or other disciplines, and who are pursuing intellectual agendas in race, ethnicity, and the law. We write to you because you have been identified as interested in this area, and we ask you to alert students and faculty who may be interested in this opportunity in any way you deem best, including posting the materials which you will find at the web link at the end of this letter in a suitable place, circulating copies to faculty who may teach interested students, or circulating them to students directly.

As you may know, Latino/a Critical Theory (LatCrit) is a scholarly movement designed to respond to the long historical presence and general sociolegal invisibility of Latinas/os in the lands now known as the United States. While originating in the legal academy of the United States, this movement increasingly has striven to integrate inter-disciplinary studies and comparative analyses in the formulating of LatCrit theory and praxis. This year, the SSP will bring the Student Scholars into the LatCrit intellectual and social community in four mutually reinforcing ways:

1. Each Student Scholar will receive a scholarship covering registration, lodging, and group meals, to attend the Twelfth Annual LatCrit conference, to be held October 5-7, 2007, in Miami, Florida, at Florida International University School of Law. LatCrit conferences are open, mid-sized gatherings of about 75-135 attendees, and provide students with a rare opportunity to inspire and be inspired by faculty in law and other fields from all over the world who are doing cutting-edge work in race and ethnicity.

2. Each Student Scholar’s paper will be eligible for publication in a symposium issue devoted to the Twelfth Annual LatCrit conference.

3. Each Student Scholar will be matched with one or more academic mentor(s) whose work lies in an area of the Scholar’s interest, and who will work with the Scholar directly over the course of the spring and summer preceding the conference to help the Scholar prepare for the conference and advance his/her scholarly and activist agenda.

4. Each Student Scholar will receive a travel stipend of up to $750 USD to help subsidize travel expenses to and from the Twelfth Annual LatCrit Conference. Any additional expenses remain the responsibility of each Student Scholar.

This year, up to four students will be selected to be LatCrit Student Scholars. The LatCrit Student Scholar Awards Committee, comprised of LatCrit scholars, will make the selections based on application materials submitted in a timely manner. Successful applicants must submit: (1) a fully-completed application form; (2) a current resume; (3) a personal statement (no longer than one single-spaced page) explaining how the Student Scholar Program will further the student’s intellectual and professional agenda; and (4) a previously unpublished paper authored by the applicant, no more than 10,000 words long, on any topic related to race, ethnicity, and the law. All application materials, including the paper, must be typed and must be submitted in English. For copies of the official Call for Papers and related application materials, please visit the LatCrit, Inc. website at www.latcrit.org.

The deadline for applications is FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007. Inquiriesshould be directed to:

Almost 30 percent of the non-English speakers in the United States live in California, many of them in households that are "linguistically isolated" because they lack adults or teenagers proficient in English, according to data from the 2000 census released Tuesday.

The disproportionately high number of Californians with limited English skills is straining the state's education system, according to school officials interviewed about the report, as immigrants continue moving here, primarily from Mexico and Central America and also from Asia.

But immigrants are eager to learn, and their children are mastering English and successfully assimilating into American society, demographers and education experts said. Click here.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) succeeded in having two provisions of a Bush administration anti-terrorism initiative ruled unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins ruled in Humanitarian Law Project v. Department of Treasury that the law, an Executive Order issued shortly after 9/11 and used to blacklist hundreds of individuals and organizations as “specially designated global terrorists” and freeze their assets, is unconstitutionally vague and imposes guilt by association. Click here for the CCR press release and an link to the ruling.

The earlier post about Biden's "get tough" stance on immigration highlights the reality that Dems are goign to have to lead on immigration, rather than just criticizing the Republican approach. And this could prove tricky to the those party members who have run on more populist platforms that shun globalization in all its forms. As Thomas B. Edsall wrote in today's NYTimes:

Politically, the result [of the November elections] has shifted the balance of power within the Democratic Party in favor of the protectionist wing, and especially in favor of such major unions as the Teamsters, the steelworkers and the autoworkers, all key party supporters with money and manpower.

The strengthening of the Democrats’ protectionist wing is virtually certain to force to the surface a second, and closely related, internal conflict between the party’s pro- and anti-immigration wings...

A solid block of Democrats who won this month — Jon Tester, James Webb, Sherrod Brown and Heath Shuler included — is inclined to put the brakes on all cross-border activity (otherwise known as globalization): trade, outsourcing and the flow of human labor.